MULE DEER SHOOTING 
The mule deer (C. Macrotis) is the largest of the 
three smaller deer found in America north of the 
Mexican line. Its large ears readily distinguish 
it from either the white tail (C. Virginianus) or 
the black (C. Columbianus). The black tail is not 
found, so far as I know, in the region inhabited 
by the mule deer, but the white tail sometimes is. 
All over the intermountain country, however, the 
common name for the mule is the black tail to dis- 
tinguish it from the white tail, or river deer. 
There is a good reason for the mule deer’s local 
name—it has a black tip to its tail, and this is very 
much in evidence, surrounded as it is with white 
hair, while the Pacific Coast deer has a perfectly 
black tail. The antlers of the mule deer vary 
greatly in big heads, but the smaller ones are all 
very much alike, in that they lie back and not for- 
ward, as in the white tail, and that the beam 
bifurcates, and that these bifurcations bifurcate 
again; while the beam of the white tail curves for- 
ward and the tines stick up from this curve. I 
have sometimes seen mule deer heads assume the 
later type. Exceptional and freak heads exist— 
the most beautiful I have ever seen being one owned 
by myself. This head was shot by a rancher on 
the borders of Colorado and Utah. He nailed it 
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